the Hot Spring
by writemenyc
Summary: Two parts, one story. Charlie and Monroe accidentally meet at the hot spring outside of Willoughby. This is set after episode (2x9) And yes, this is #Charloe.
1. Chapter 1

He was still crazy.

The mask Monroe wore to convince others he was in his right mind was a thin veil at best. It's only with the shocking realization that he had a son out there that there came a sudden shift in perspective. In one moment, he went from burned out sociopath to a tormented man. Monroe was on a mission to find his family and perhaps, along the way, the smallest iota of forgiveness.

He had tried making an offering of himself by transforming from man to punching bag or, in essence, proffering up his pound of flesh to the powers that be, but to no avail. Back in New Vegas he swam in a sea of depravity hoping to drown. Only he hadn't expected Charlie. She yanked him out of the world he knew he deserved, however unintended on her part.

Timing is everything in life. Or at least that's what people said when they could still read the time. Now, with the seemingly endless succession of hours and days, it was easier to get lost and much easier to forget that things still had the ability of happening at the right time, in the right place, for the right reasons. Or at least those were the musings of a crazy man when he climbed out of the hot spring outside Willoughby and caught Charlie staring at his wet, naked body.

Meeting her heated gaze in the moonlight Monroe nearly swallowed his tongue in surprise. Funny enough, when he saw her, his first thoughts were that she was there with more bad news. Afraid of what could happen to Miles, his heart pounded loudly between his ears at the thought. He also didn't want to have to jump into X-Files creepiness or see any more spontaneously combustible Patriots that night. He hadn't even considered that, without meaning to do so, he had already put into motion Charlie's own form of spontaneous combustion.

"Are you ok?" Monroe finally poked at her entranced look with the question.

"What?" She spoke in a harsh whisper, her eyes still fixated on the parts of his body that held the most interest. Her gaze raked from muscular thighs to heavenly male bits and expanded to absorb the broad width of his rock hard chest. Monroe couldn't help letting out a small chuckle at her reaction. Her eyes snapped up to his at the sound.

"I asked if you're alright?"

Charlie's cheeks burned with embarrassment and she quickly turned her head back to the dense copse of forest she'd come from.

"I'm alright. I was just so worried about Miles and Aaron and thinking about all the craziness today. I couldn't sleep after everything that happened so I went for a walk and then I saw you. You were in the spring and I… And I…" She rambled out the words so fast, they sounded almost foreign on her lips. Monroe never heard he speak so fast before, he thought she might still be in shock from all the near death experiences they were racking up.

"Yeah." He mumbled, gratefully interrupting the stuttering mess she'd become. Monroe grabbed at his clothes nearby finally feeling the rush of impropriety fall over him at his nakedness. He quickly jumped into his pants scolding himself for feeling anything akin to pleasure at the heated look Charlie had given to him. "_She's just a kid, totally innocent in this."_ He mentally tried to convince himself. _"Hell, my son would be older than her. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve her. I have to get out of here."_ The thoughts tumbled over each other in a rush, too fast to examine how he had gotten to his conclusions. He only knew now that he could not arrive at any other.

"Monroe?" He could not indulge in this train of thought. He could not.

"Bass?" Charlie was looking back at him now, her tone sad, but whether it was from the day's events or him putting his clothes on, he couldn't be sure. He nodded to her sharply in acknowledgement sheepishly wishing he could hide under the nearest, largest rock. He mentally pushed the fact that she'd finally called him by his first name as far to the back of his mind as humanly possible.

"What happened today, at the high school… I'm glad you came back." Something told him that was as much thank you as he was ever going to get and in all likelihood surely more than he deserved. He simply nodded again and found something interesting on the ground to stare at. His body slightly turned in the direction of his camp, mentally preparing himself to flee. When he finally looked up again, Charlie was standing right in front of him. She was so quiet, she could have passed easily for a ghost or an angel flying in to take him to the other side of reality, to the death he now felt sure he deserved. Charlie hesitantly placed a forgiving hand on his shoulder surprising him again with such a pitying look. He wondered what had happened to all the rage that had once flourished behind those bright blue eyes.

"I need you… to help me…Can you do something for me?" Was this really the same girl that had tried to assassinate him only weeks before?

"Anything," he whispered in response and coughed, dislodging the voice caught in his throat and repeated himself, "Anything, Charlotte."

She looked down at where her hand touched his shoulder and realized that it felt like she was burning up from the spark that had jumped between them. She quickly removed her hand and instantly regretted the loss of contact. At first Charlie was disgusted by these emotions, that every stolen moment of happiness with him was somehow an insult to the memory of those she'd lost in large part because of him. She swallowed hard and found herself wishing she had the courage to name what she really felt. Instead, Charlie stumbled over words she hadn't planned out.

"I need to know… I need to learn…" Monroe raised his eyebrows in pointed anticipation. "…How to fight better." The bitter mistruth lodged itself in her throat and she swallowed it down, adding to the sickening mound of feelings she was always too fearful to express. Monroe just sat there looking up at her, patiently waiting for her to continue or finish her train of thought without having any idea that there was none, unaware that there was just raw need hidden behind a wall of uncertainty.

"I mean, I need to learn to fight back even harder. You have to train me how to fight like you do." The idea was both repellant and necessary to Monroe. On the one hand she had a point. She had more than once proven that she needed to learn how to protect herself better. But it was a revolting thought at the same time that she would need to learn to protect herself better, that he perhaps wouldn't be staying in her life long enough to protect her for, well, the rest of his. It was also sickening because he didn't want her to be anything like him. But looking up at her now, the full flush of her lips, the womanly curves of her body in contrast to the seriousness of her jaw clenching and unclenching from what he thought was in anticipation to his answer. Her hard eyes narrowed at him and he wondered if it had already happened. Did all the accumulating death in her life transform her into a mirror of his own frustrating emptiness?

Monroe stood up, ready to go, to be anywhere but here with these thoughts. He turned and she grabbed his elbow, swinging him back around to face her, the two of them just inches apart.

"Tomorrow." He ground out the words forcibly, "Be outside the safe house at first light and we'll get started." He managed to bite out before turning on his heel and walking away as fast as possible without breaking into a sprint and running. Charlie stood frozen in place afterwards for what seemed like an eternity staring at the spot she'd first seen him standing, half in spring water, half in naked air. She was bewildered but excited for tomorrow, that life could be different. There was the possibility that in time they could give renewed meaning to both their lives.


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie was going crazy.

Or at least that's what she thought after she'd asked Monroe to train her. It had been five weeks since that night at the hot spring. Looking over that same bubbling water now, she felt it may as well have been five years.

Every day from sun up to sun down, Monroe had put Charlie through the most aggressive form of physical training. During sparring matches, with each cathartic round they would trade strikes and parries, fighting harder than either had thought possible of the other. Far away from a recovering Miles and the woman playing his nursemaid, Rachel, the two flirted wildly with each other, neither being able to resist the other's intensity during training sessions.

"You look like you're dancing!" Monroe chuckled. "When you're fighting, each footstep has to be planted firmly in the ground." He demonstrated by stomping his foot at the earth.

"Funny you should say that since you're the one that always look a little light in the loafers," The corner of Charlie's mouth quirked up, trying to hold back a smile.

"Ha!" Monroe laughed outright. He enjoyed when anyone could show him up with wordplay, especially Charlie.

"You've been hanging out with Gene too much, you're starting to sound like him."

"What, a smart doctor?"

"No," he laughed again and shook his head. In these moments it was difficult for him not to notice. He actually felt… Happy.

"Nevermind, I'll show you who's light on their feet!" With that Monroe delivered a fast sweep-kick, depositing Charlie on the ground with a loud, thud.

Had it only been a month since Charlie was first tempted by madness and the most sexually potent body she'd ever seen? She knew that together they were like two opposing magnets holding lit sticks of dynamite. On the tail end of their teasing hovered a fear neither was able to face. They knew what would happen in the aftermath of such an explosion. Despite the escalating sparring, both verbal and otherwise, they immediately went their separate ways at the end of each training session.

But this night was much different. This night's events were so scattered in Charlie's mind, but the feelings that followed were all-enfolding. Her emotions enclosed around her memories, drawing them inward, confounding her mind with an overwhelming force that threatened to choke her completely. There was so much Patriot blood on her hands, face, and body. She didn't know if it could ever be washed off.

She had come to the spring, she thought, to cleanse her body. She'd hoped to wash away the memories as well but being there, surrounded by the recollection of how she'd arrived at this point, she had to wonder if she really deserved purity again when her soul had become so tarnished. She felt tragically shriveled, over ripened and older than she possibly could be at twenty-two. Simultaneously, she'd felt grateful to Monroe for successfully teaching her how to defend herself, although she realized too late that their sessions hadn't ended with simple protection. Looking back she knew he hadn't just taught her how to fight and win. He'd infused within her the necessity to kill. Many times he'd told her, "The fight isn't over until your enemy is no longer able to be your enemy ever again." And later, looking down the threatening barrel of a rifle earlier that evening, she had been convinced.

Charlie knew she had done the right thing, but altogether had done the right thing too well. That night, she and Monroe together had killed dozens of Patriots. While a healing Miles played lookout, outside the procession of carriages camping out for the night, the pair were making short work of the men inside. Charlie thought Miles knew there might be a problem with the plan when they counted how many soldiers there were. Certainly there were many more than they'd expected to come between them and the Corporal they were after. However, when she'd stepped out of the back carriage covered head to toe in blood, the look on his face said otherwise.

She'd barely noticed Miles on the way back. She felt more than saw the two fighting about the plan. Miles was yelling at Monroe, asking what had happened to a simple sneak and grab mission. Monroe had immediately countered, exploding with latent adrenaline, fear and rage after Charlie had been discovered by dumb luck by some wet behind the ears private. Charlie actually pitied Monroe at that moment. It wasn't fair that he'd have to defend himself to his best friend just because she'd been caught. Looking at the Corporal slumped over the back of a horse, Charlie hoped against hope that his information would be worth the bloodshed.

As Charlie watched the steam rise up from the hot spring, memories of the young private's face crumbling under the weight of a blunt, heavy object Charlie luckily palmed at the last moment replayed in her mind. Charlie saw the young man's face caving in again and again as she struck him, gasping for air as his hands finally fell from around her throat. The memory came over her in waves that threatened to draw her in completely.

She looked over her bloodied hands, down to her red-stained top and pants, finally settling on the dried blood and dirt crusted around her shoes. She wasn't angry anymore that her mom chose to let Nora die, that Jason's dad had killed her own, that Bass was, at least indirectly, responsible for her brother's death. She didn't feel anything anymore. Disgust came over her just as the Private's blood had, spurting out, across her face in protest. She looked back at the steam rising off the hot spring and walked into the water still fully clothed hoping there was enough water to cleanse her dirtied soul.

Unbeknownst to her, a very concerned Monroe had been watching Charlie from a distance. After dumping the knocked-out Corporal with Miles, he'd seen Charlie vacantly walking in the opposite direction of home and town. He'd followed her to the spring, his interest piqued and watched her for a long time standing in the chilly Texas night still covered in dried Patriot blood. He hadn't been particularly stealthy following her and was alarmed that she didn't seem to notice. Judging by the expression on her face, Monroe reasoned there was cause for alarm. Watching her walk in to the spring, head back, eyes pointed towards the dark night sky as the water swallowed her completely, he started to panic in earnest.

Before he'd left Miles with Rachel, Miles had grabbed him in his pursuit of the all too quiet Charlie. "We went in there half-cocked, Bass. We were extremely lucky." Miles eyes flicked to Charlie's retreating form. Monroe needed to move, now. "Fix it." Was all Miles said, motioning in her direction before turning and heading back into the house. "Or suffer the consequences!" He yelled over his shoulder to a man whose thoughts were already far away.

When Charlie didn't surface from the water after several moments, cold dread ran through him like a gunshot. Monroe ran to the water's edge and plunged headfirst into the hot water, terrified that he may be too late.

For a long time the area above and around the spring was completely still and the world outside them was at peace. Then a few bubbles rose to the surface and broke, expelling into the air. A few more were released before there was an explosion and their two bodies burst forth onto the sandy bank. Charlie sputtered on her side, still held tightly by Monroe.

"Why did you do that?" Charlie finally gasped after she'd found her breath.

"Are you kidding?" He yelled, "You're fully clothed playing 'how long can you hold your breath underwater' and you're asking me why I pulled you out?!" He was seeing red, he was so angry. Water splashed around him noisily as Bass waded onto dry land. Charlie just shook her head in disbelief before her teeth started chattering noisily. Monroe looked back at her. She was still lying half in, half out of the hot spring. Charlie, stirred under his heated gaze, propping herself up on her elbows. Straightening her shoulders, she finally steadied her breathing even though the cold was making it difficult not to chatter her teeth. Monroe watched as Charlie's cold breath made little clouds with each exhale. He could admit, even shook up, Charlie looked beautiful. The way her wet clothes clung to each delicious curve, it was impossible for Monroe not to remember that either the air had turned much too cold much too fast or the two of them were over hot. Try as he might, he could not, not notice her hardening nipples standing out from her shirt.

"Bass?" Charlie finally looked up and he realized her nipples weren't the only thing stiffening. "I'm cc-cooold." She said finally, giving up to chattering teeth. What a thing for her to think about after the fact.

"I'm going to get some wood, start a fire so we can dry our clothes." Charlie steadied her pointed gaze at Bass' steely blue eyes, travelling down to his wet shirt clinging to his shoulders and pecks, down to his abs then…

Bass turned quickly, adjusting himself and muttered something apologetic about their clothes and the cold before going into the darkest part of the surrounding woods to collect firewood. While he collected pieces he tried not to think about how they were going to get their clothes dry without taking them off.

When Monroe returned, he noticed that Charlie was in the hot spring up to her neck before turning to focus his attention on starting the fire, which he made quick work of. By this time, the temperature had dropped so low that even the great Monroe himself started shaking and jumping from one foot to another in front of the fire he was trying to stoke to get hotter.

Unbeknownst to a preoccupied Monroe, Charlie had been feeling hotter studying his every move from the time he'd come back. She'd waited, nude, not knowing when would be the right moment to disclose that simple detail. She'd taken her clothes off initially to aid in drying them faster, but thinking over the last several weeks of frustration, at some point her mind had drifted back to the last time she'd been at the hot spring.

She replayed the entire ravenous scene even after Monroe had already lit the fire. Charlie groaned lightly as the warm glow of the fire's orange embers illuminated Monroe's perfect physique through his thin, damp clothes. The light and his curly, blonde hair met causing the light around him to intensify and made it seem like he wore a halo. Charlie gasped and thought, "This monster is divine!" And just as suddenly Charlie had an epiphany.

"Smart move getting back in the hot spring, Charlie," Monroe called absently to where she'd been and heard splashing, like she was walking out to finally join him and he turned, noticing bare legs first, then a pile of clothes in her hands shielding her womanhood. Then there was the sway of her hips, a lithe, flat stomach, and the swell of perfect, round breasts and matted wet hair, hidden behind her shoulders. _"Oh, God,"_ he swallowed hard, trying wildly to get ahold of himself, or at least to move, and not stand there like poor Bambi trapped in Charlie's proud headlights. Monroe's last thoughts had been so derailed by the vision standing before him, he forgot them completely. Trailing up the rest of Charlie's amazing, naked body Monroe finally seemed to notice Charlie's full mouth before meeting her intensely focused blue eyes.

"Charlie… What are you…?" She dropped her wet attire, closing the distance between them and silencing him with a bruising kiss. All at once the two were on one another in a whirlwind of hands and lips. After several moments, his hand reached up to steady her face. Heatedly he motioned for her to open her eyes so she could look into his and see how lost in her he already was becoming.

Monroe broke away violently when he thought he saw doubt pass over her vibrant blue orbs. "I can't…" He sputtered, "I won't be able to stop once I start and I can't do this, not with you." Charlie's brow furrowed furiously. "I mean, I can't do this _to_ you… Everything I touch dies…"

"Please, Bass."

"… Everyone one I love leaves me." Bass had to look away and for a long moment they were both silent.

Charlie came towards him again and he finally managed to pull himself away from his tumultuous thoughts, meeting Charlie's unsteady gaze. Her eyes slowly reverted back to the vacant look he'd first seen when they'd left the campsite littered with the bodies of the Patriots they'd slaughtered together.

"Please, Bass." She spoke quietly, "I can't have what happened tonight on this constant, horrifying loop where I bash that boy's head in again and again…" A young man that was just getting started in life, a young man that reminded her of her brother, Danny. Her lip quivered and she could feel her voice crack. Monroe pulled her into his arms and cradled her body against his, Mile's words from earlier replayed in his mind in much the same way.

"I need you, Bass." She whispered against his shoulder simply. "I want to think about something good."

And there is was, like the proverbial carrot dangling in front of his face. Monroe could never be completely good ever again, but he could be someone good for Charlie right now. He could give her something good. Monroe brought her tear-stained face up to meet his eye and he thought, "I can damn sure be better than good for her." Right before surprising her with his own searing kiss. And he was. Together, that night, they were magnificent.


End file.
